Table of Contents
Hoffmans best ... readers will relish this magical tale.
Publishers Weekly
A sweet, sweet story that like the best fairy tales says more than at first it seems to.New York Daily News
[Hoffman] has proved once again her potency as a storyteller, combining the mundane with the fantastic in a totally engaging way.Boston Sunday Herald
Whimsical ... Hoffmans touch is so light, her writing so luminous. The Orlando Sentinel
Charming.Library Journal
Witches and ghosts, spells and sleight-of-hand weave a fanciful atmosphere in Alice Hoffmans tender comedy about clairvoyance, spells, and family ties. The Miami Herald
[A] delicious fantasy of witchcraft and love in a world where gardens smell of lemon verbena and happy endings are possible.
Cosmopolitan
A cosmic romance leavened with just the right touch of pragmatism and humor. Booklist
Hoffmans writing has plenty of power. Her best sentences are like incantationsthey wont let you get away.
Kirkus Reviews
Perfect.Dayton Daily News
Engaging.Glamour
Whimsical.Los Angeles Times
Praise for the previous works of Alice Hoffman:
BLUE DIARY
A page-turner ... hard to put down ... even harder to forget.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Investigate[s] the themes of devotion, betrayal, guilt, and forgiveness in trenchantly effective ways.Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A delectable writer ... God bless her.New York Daily News
ILLUMINATION NIGHT
Daringly mixing comedy with tragedy ... [Hoffman] has created a narrative that somehow makes myth out of the sticky complexities of contemporary marriage ... Her characters are branded onto ones memory.The New York Times Book Review
THE RIVER KING
Flows as swiftly and limpidly as the Haddan River, the towns mystical waterway ... As ever, Hoffman mixes myth, magic, and reality, addressing issues of town and gown, enchanting her readers with a many-layered morality tale, and proving herself once again an inventive author with a distinctive touch.Publishers Weekly (starred review)
HERE ON EARTH
[Hoffman] plumbs the interior lives of, among others, a drunken recluse, a heartsick teenage boy, an angry daughter, a near madman, a cuckolded husband, and three wounded women with such modesty and skill that she seems to witness rather than invent their lives.
Entertainment Weekly
ANGEL LANDING
A good, old-fashioned love story ... Alice Hoffmans writing at its precise and heartbreaking best.The Washington Post Book World
LOCAL GIRLS
She is one of the best writers we have todayinsightful, funny, intelligent, with a distinctive voice ... [Local Girls] does a lot to show that Hoffman is an established artist at her peak.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
SECOND NATURE
Suspenseful ... a dark, romantic meditation on what it means to be human.The New Yorker
PROPERTY OF
An unmistakably gifted work ... Alice Hoffman flares with talent.
Kirkus Reviews
TURTLE MOON
Hard to put down ... full of characters who take hold of your heart.The San Francisco Examiner
FORTUNES DAUGHTER
[An] intimate, lovely novel, most of whose concerns swirl about the pain and joys of motherhood.People
Praise for Alice Hoffman:
Hoffman seems certain to join such writers as Anne Tyler and Mary Gordon ... a major novelist.Newsweek
One of the brightest and most imaginative of contemporary writers.
The Sacramento Bee
Her novels are as fluid and graceful as dreams.
The San Diego Union-Tribune
A reader is in good hands with Alice Hoffman, able to count on many pleasures.Jane Smiley, USA Today
Alice Hoffman is a real writer who pleasures us as she teaches, distracts us from real life as she illuminates it.Judith Rossner
With her glorious prose and extraordinary eye ... Alice Hoffman seems to know what it means to be a human being.
Susan Isaacs, Newsday
Berkley Books by Alice Hoffman
PROPERTY OF
THE DROWNING SEASON
ANGEL LANDING
WHITE HORSES
FORTUNES DAUGHTER
ILLUMINATION NIGHT
AT RISK
SEVENTH HEAVEN
TURTLE MOON
SECOND NATURE
PRACTICAL MAGIC
HERE ON EARTH
LOCAL GIRLS
THE RIVER KING
BLUE DIARY
For Children
FIREFLIES
HORSEFLY
AQUAMARINE
INDIGO
For every evil under the sun,
There is a remedy, or there is none.
If there be one, seek till you find it;
If there be none, never mind it.
MOTHER GOOSE
SUPERSTITION
FOR more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in town. If a damp spring arrived, if cows in the pasture gave milk that was runny with blood, if a colt died of colic or a baby was born with a red birthmark stamped onto his cheek, everyone believed that fate must have been twisted, at least a little, by those women over on Magnolia Street. It didnt matter what the problem waslightning, or locusts, or a death by drowning. It didnt matter if the situation could be explained by logic, or science, or plain bad luck. As soon as there was a hint of trouble or the slightest misfortune, people began pointing their fingers and placing blame. Before long theyd convinced themselves that it wasnt safe to walk past the Owens house after dark, and only the most foolish neighbors would dare to peer over the black wrought-iron fence that circled the yard like a snake.
Inside the house there were no clocks and no mirrors and three locks on each and every door. Mice lived under the floorboards and in the walls and often could be found in the dresser drawers, where they ate the embroidered tablecloths, as well as the lacy edges of the linen placemats. Fifteen different sorts of wood had been used for the window seats and the mantels, including golden oak, silver ash, and a peculiarly fragrant cherrywood that gave off the scent of ripe fruit even in the dead of winter, when every tree outside was nothing more than a leafless black stick. No matter how dusty the rest of the house might be, none of the woodwork ever needed polishing. If you squinted, you could see your reflection right there in the wainscoting in the dining room or the banister you held on to as you ran up the stairs. It was dark in every room, even at noon, and cool all through the heat of July. Anyone who dared to stand on the porch, where the ivy grew wild, could try for hours to look through the windows and never see a thing. It was the same looking out; the green-tinted window glass was so old and so thick that everything on the other side seemed like a dream, including the sky and the trees.
The little girls who lived up in the attic were sisters, only thirteen months apart in age. They were never told to go to bed before midnight or reminded to brush their teeth. No one cared if their clothes were wrinkled or if they spit on the street. All the while these little girls were growing up, they were allowed to sleep with their shoes on and draw funny faces on their bedroom walls with black crayons. They could drink cold Dr Peppers for breakfast, if that was what they craved, or eat marshmallow pies for dinner. They could climb onto the roof and sit perched on the slate peak, leaning back as far as possible, in order to spy the first star. There they would stay on windy March nights or humid August evenings, whispering, arguing over whether it was feasible for even the smallest wish to ever come true.
